Hi, it's Audie Cornish here and it's Sunday, which means we have a bonus episode for you.

It's about the psychology of risk and a phenomenon known as psychic numbing, which is basically

when it's hard for us to process the suffering of large numbers of people.

It comes from our colleagues at NPR's Daily Science podcast Shortwave, and it's especially

relevant now, with the US nearing half a million officially recorded deaths from the coronavirus.

Here's the episode with Shortwave host Maddie Safaya.

Paul Slobick studies how humans make decisions.

I'm a research psychologist, and for quite a long while I've been studying the psychology

of risk and decision making.

I actually remember learning about Paul and his work back when I was in grad school.

I was a scientist before I became a journalist and I followed your work for a really long time.

I'm a little star-struck, to be honest, this is very cool for me.

Thank you.

I've been doing this for a long time.

Some of his most famous work looks at a psychological phenomenon known as psychic numbing.

Basically, it's when we feel indifferent to the suffering of large numbers of people.

When we should be feeling very emotionally connected to some situation, and we don't do that,

we just bounce off our brain with leaving no impression at all.

That's psychic numbing.

If we're just seeing the numbers and we're not pausing to stop and think about the reality

of the lives beneath the surface of the numbers.

A humanitarian crisis, a natural disaster.

...